Intermediary- The Near-Sighted Path of AI

    Artificial Intelligence: The Source Through Which We Fall

        “Alexica, grab me a coffee and turn on the T.V,” I cawed out while sinking into my AI-generated premium leather chair.

“Certainly sir,” a metallic voice vibrated through my eardrums, and the chair manually adjusted my posture to ensure a perfect arch was formed by my back for optimal health.

As locket-golden beams of sunlight filtered through the windows in the dawning of a new day, I stopped Windr- our window adjuster- from automatically doing its thing in order to let in some more Vitamin D. Unequipping my earbuds, I soaked in the gentle melodic soundwaves of a few doves outside, as the flapping and barely audible rustling of their wings was like an orchestra far more serene than the works of even the greatest of classical composers (no offense Mozart).

And in such refined moments as this, like for any great author or connoisseur of the arts, a novelty struck my thought, rumbling out from my mouth as I pondered its possibility.

“You know, life is good right now, isn’t it? I’ve had the whole world stirred up in a cup of coffee, and handed to me with a heart design creamed in,” I beamed, taking a sip of my drink for effect.

“But what if things were different, a de-evolution, if I will? What if, like the past, people had to enlist some self-responsibility and carry burdens that technology couldn’t lighten with a flick of a switch or whir of a motor? Could I ever be like those baby birds out yonder: nurtured by a higher, elderly constituent while still possessing the ability to fly freely on my own?” A glimmer shone from my eyes, but this one wasn’t from the sun.

“Ah yes, but it can be done, master. A simple command from your part, and I can initiate my built-in time travel maneuver and send you back to the ‘Moderning Age’, where you will temporarily swap bodies with your doppelganger from the late 2000s who grew self-sufficiently while still being exposed to technology from his infancy. But I must warn you, sir, that this change has been attempted in the past, and people almost always prefer the comforting sanctuary of today in comparison,” Alexica chimed in, her listening skills just a mere part of the toolkit that makes her such a valuable asset.

“I don’t care Alexica. Please, send me back. I’m tired of being a vegetable here, and a few tugs on these dormant roots to pluck me out and set me straight oughta shed me some new perspective.” This new posture was beginning to ache. Would this chair really be a preventative measure for arthritis as promised?

“Affirmative master. Beep, boop, blast! Your presence has now been set to the past,” Alexica vocalized, and in mere seconds, it was like all color spilled out from my eyes and dove straight into a bottomless trench. My staunch nose began giving mismatched signals, and my silky brown strands of overlapping hair all binded into a knot, losing a game of tug-of-war with gravity.

I woke up, and the world was a million different colors. Natural colors, like the sunset on a cloudless night at a beach in Southern California. Disorienting colors, tasting like sparkling water with an extra pump of oxygen and technology indiscriminately zapped into their crevices- but not like before. I took a deep breath, and it tasted like air. No electrolytes, no purifiers, and a sooty, smoky, bread-crumb baked odor mixed in. A smell I haven’t taken in for years at end.

“Oooh Alexica, you naughty robot, tempting Daddy with that delightful aroma. But you know I can’t eat that; it would disrupt the flawless ratio of protein to carbohydrates that you’ve so emphasized I consume,” my drunken stupor ventured just five feet before it boomeranged back a flaming broil and metal clang. The pan flung like a lasso and clobbered my head against the wall, causing a warm red liquid to trickle out.

“Danny, who the hell is Alexica? And why have you not arisen your lazy, slumpen, good-for-nothing hindquarters from this cot and worn your clothes yet? Money hasn’t been programmed to grow from trees yet, and however idealistic your frivolous dreams are, they aren’t going to support us for long. This isn’t breakfast, this is a warning. If these hashbrowns aren’t thrusted down your esophagus in the next 28 seconds, even God’s mercy won't be saving you from the streets, because that’s where you will be going,” a petite, 40-something Latina cannon of a woman blew through my bubble, and my thumping heart sprung right out of port like a grapeshot.

Ironically, as I was un-athletically diving into my “work attire” (which was just navy blue shorts and some blazers) and vacuuming in some over-burnt eggs like a VaRoomba 3000 (older models probably exist in this time period), I managed to perceive my surroundings. Doing so, I felt like a bowling ball swinging towards the side of a lane milliseconds after the kid-bumpers had deactivated: lost, fragmented, and worst-of-all, afraid.

Arguably the most glaring of issues arose when I tried to walk. You see, in the present day (and in this case, the future), almost everything is made for me. Hungry? Sensors discerning a lack of food in my digestive system notify a computer through a chip implanted in my head, and a plate of food is not only delivered by Alexica’s alter-ego GordRamsio 4.0, but also served squarely into my mouth like a mother simulating an airplane crash with a pile of peas into her newborn’s slobbering cavity. Thirsty? Same thing, but with water. Need to use the toilet? Not a problem, I’d already be sitting on one, and the latch would open automatically from similar sensors hooked up to my rectum.

So obviously, why would I’ve needed to walk when wheels existed? Not just any wheels for that matter, but specially-mechanized wheels that, you guessed it, have sensors almost feeling my urgency to relocate to specific places (like bed).

  But of course, I do have some conception of how exactly walking works; I had learned the very act from Channel 8 Podcast 17 of “His Boys”. It’s just that newcomers don’t get things right the first try; they must fall flat on their faces over and over again until the bruises on their noses plead for correction, and their brains hook up at just the right moment to put one foot in front of the other. Unluckily for me, an increasingly agitated Mexican woman (who knows me?) coupled with my eagerness to explore this far-from-futuristic past do not grant me the test of time. Plus, my nose is already battered from this rage machine’s hate-spewing pan-throwing skills over here, so it appears like an alternative, more technological method of traveling is required.

“Right away honey,” I tested flinchingly, and the woman’s ire seemed to sizzle down a few notches. “Well, I’m off to work now, so I’ll catch you later alligator,” I chuckled a little too comfortably, and was almost sent into a coma from another steel-plated kitchen device.

As I spiraled into the mouth of the outside world, it felt like time began to tick instrumentally faster than before. VROOM! A motorized bicycle barreled past, spinning me horizontally into the mouth of an electric generator. Bewildered, I cradled to the corner of an alleyway and thought. Good thing for me, with all that free time I had back at home, I had my fair share of historical knowledge concerning this particular scenario. Instinctively, I sprung my right arm into a waving motion, my joints hollering from their sudden arousal post-dormancy. A small yellow vehicle sputtered by, and its doors creaked off their hinges fashionably. Warily, I entered, and was greeted by the judgemental side eye of a slender, artificially constructed robotic organism which I could only presume to be what my limited archive of knowledge would call a “New-Yorker-4k”.

“So where to, huh?” the New-Yorker-4k blared through its nose, and I snickered at the thought of a trumpet being stuffed down its windpipe.

“Um…” I hurriedly snagged the worker’s badge from my blazer’s upper pocket and shot it a glance.

“Silver Techno- SILVER TECHNOLOGIES!” I gasped as my brain retained the information that had just spilled out from my mouth. A sputtering, mildly contemptuous glance later from the AI driver, and the vehicle lurched into motion while my disconcerted jaw plunged down from its quarters.

“Silver Technologies,” I whispered once more to myself, my heartbeat tap-dancing to the beat of my pounding eardrums. In modern day, although many technological giants specialize in our AI developments, Silver Technologies is the gatekeeper of them all: the behemoth who locks up half its competition and swallows the key, digesting it along with the other half of the market who’d sold their souls away to it for a meager price. My eyes continued scanning, and the next two words made my lips quiver and fingers seizure even harder than before: Vice President.

As my world jumped through currents and ripped through the sky, I was stuck in a daze trying to process all of this new information. My stupor suddenly shattered as the car halted, and I reached for my pockets before foregoing the move. We weren’t that far back in time. With the taxi driver belching one final sickly BOOP to send me on my way, I was ejected to a place where hesitance and curiosity simultaneously competed to keep me preoccupied. Curiosity won. Craning my neck, a skyscraper higher than all the city’s mountains and sleeker in la modernité than all adjacent corporations came into view, the words ‘Silver Technologies’ imprinted in a font size bigger and bolder than all the world’s font collections could offer, combined.

And the rest of society didn’t sell itself short either.

Hard, metallic bullets whizzed by above, cars with jet engines electrifying all visible air left in their paths. Delicate strands of threading swooped in from building to building, shuttles tumbling through pairs of steel tracks as the transparency of these web-like tubes glorified the speed at which the engines were moving. Pedestrians swarmed, bickering through their headsets and auto-generated monitors with 3-dimensional webcams blasted in front of them, and my footsteps ‘cling’ed and ‘clang’ed like the tiles of a piano, with one mis-step meaning ‘Game Over’ on the pathway to my job.

Yet it seemed like hardly anyone was playing the game, and those who were certainly didn’t seem to be enjoying it. Tapered to the walls of every plexiglass window and strewn from alley to alley alongside mechanical trinkets lay mass clusters of homeless people, enough to populate ten Jupiters comfortably, minus all of the soot and grime generated from that crusty mangled embroidery hanging off their chests (which could hardly be called clothing).

Even more disturbing than this general vibe was the fact that passivity seemed to be implanted into the DNA of folks like the chips in my membrane (which were still functional, right?). A black man with a retro-style afro and a face as still as stone kicked past one impoverished man’s tip box, while a Chinese woman cursed out another for imposing his “hairy legs” in her way. A smile was like a gold coin buried under a mountain of sand, as people of all races, caste, gender and affluence grimaced at the mere sight of another mortal being in their presence.

Why did everyone here look like funerals were the most delightful parts of their afternoons? Shouldn’t all of this technological advancement be like God shedding His blissful grace upon their souls? I know it’s not like my futuristic present, but it would be quite far-fetched to assume that post-modernization has extinguished the flames of an incandescent heart once brewing with religion, hope, and tranquility, wouldn’t it?

Swatting away a bot-squito emitting an electronically generated buzz (I suppose as hard as we tried, not all irritations were stifled by AI), I stumbled into Silver Technologies with a heavy heart whose hard drive seemed to be heating up from sensory overload. A sulky young receptionist dilated her pupils to me in a sort of mocking deference, and I wagered a feeble smile back in return. As if she was concealing a scoff under her breath, the woman bit down on her lips and flicked back her curtain of blonde hair, directing me forth towards the elevator sign in the corner of the room.

Legs jiggling violently, I made my way past the platform. Suddenly, mid-stride through a dark funneled chamber, some serpentine tubes slithered down their silicon claws and imprisoned me in “Elevator #3”. Lights pulsated from all corners of the tubes, a vibrant beetle blue glow embracing me and turning me into a blueberry, while buzzes blared and growled from below like electrically circuited bears desperately gunning for chips to enter their pitted circuitry. The final act of this performance was a pause, gravity finally departing on its hard-earned vacation to Fiji, before reactivating in a hissing, fuming rush as its flight tickets were canceled. And like that, I was deployed straight down at speeds infinitely faster than that of light before slamming to a bellowing halt at a glimmering brass door, quickly untethered into the room outside.

After getting over the deja vu of being spat out into newness once more, I brushed myself off and was just about to finally request directions from someone when a stout man in an elegant white suit and Bleeding Edge (like A-I-ron Man!) exoskeleton wired to both of his arms addressed me curtly.

“Look who finally decided to show Danny. You’re over 45 minutes late to work, and you know what that means,” the man jabbed his ruby red, plump, carrot-like fore finger into my solar plexus, and I nodded frantically with a wince.

“Yes sir, I am aware, I got stuck in, um… traffic sir,” I chanted, having no clue what “it” meant nor taking any risks with formality.

“Haha, that was an unfunny joke prodding in uncharted territory, but I’ll let it slide this time. Everyone knows traffic doesn’t exist anymore- we have a full expanse of air! Speaking of the air, because your unexcused tardiness has already warped half your salary for the day into it; I supposed you should get to work before the other half is cut as well,” the boss smirked.

“Sir, yes sir!” I cried out a little too aggressively while marching out to my designated sector, guided by a dusky Persian brunette guarding a briefcase teeming with gadgetry firmly under her arm.

My job, as anti-climactic as it seemed, was fairly simple. I would sit down at a desk, run a few programs into faulty machines, and yell at hundreds of employees to continually manufacture and mass-produce stocks of AI from every corner of “The Lab”. Of course, compared to the present-day, this lab was hardly a sight to even scoff at, but for the times, it certainly piqued my interest for its moderately flawless efficacy and design.

All scattered around, files upon files of paperwork, technology, and berserk experiments which I can only assume were the trials for modern day technology (they looked quite different from how the designs turned out today) were stacked on tables, and jumbles of people and robots plodded the territory excavating resources and piecing together machinery in the center. Like something out of “Black Panther 14”, suits, cars, gear, prototypes, and even food were distributed with AI teeming in the mix, and blue-ish silvery orbs floated around radiating voice commands at all whose paths they crossed.

At around 6:00 p.m. that day, I was handed a lump sum of about $2000 USD, and considering how this was only half of my daily income, I was pleasantly surprised (even though this money meant nothing to me now). But as I was exiting the building that day, a bark shattered my bliss. Not from a dog, and not at me, nonetheless the message shot shivers down my spine.

“Laura, Janice, Jeremy, Xie, Sansmith, Erica, Howard, … you are all fired. Don’t worry, another 500 people from our company all across the city were fired today. No, no, it’s not personal at all, but to be brutally honest, the robots can just simply do this job better than you guys can, and we need to start shaving off the warts from the ground up if we want a chance against competitors. No, I do not care Janice, now please, get out of my face before I call security. I heard they recently installed laser beams to their arms, and I would not want to be caught in their cross fire if I was you. No Sansmith, I’m not calling you an AirLyft home, you can walk,” the voice of my boss sent a wave of goosebumps down my back as I eavesdropped on the entirety of this monologue.

As all of these co-workers whom I had berated just hours earlier trudged by with their heads low and tears splotching a warm, electric fuzz beneath my feet, I was suddenly filled with a piping hot rage, and poured out my teacup full of steam with questioning.

“Hey boss, I know this may seem like a silly question, but why do we need to lay off so many people nowadays? With AI upscaling the production of goods, shouldn’t we be able to clarify the planet with all this new technology? I mean, after all, the economy is already thriving from modernization, just look at those gas prices! In those few exceptions where we are still reliant on the old system, namely the housing and food industries, can’t we just give everyone jobs?” I took a step back in case the veins on the boss’s forehead would result in his mechanical arms blasting a hole straight through me. Luckily, it seemed from his countenance that I just might be spared.

“Well, I’m feeling awfully generous today lad, so I’ll do a little explaining for you. Not everyone in this world can build houses, and out of those who can, not everyone is needed. There is only a finite amount of space on this planet, and the ratio of people to such specified space exceeds all feasible limits,” the boss said. “The same applies for food.”

“Okay, forget jobs, the economy should make up for their absences. Everything around is so cheap now that it’s practically free, so why is money needed at all?”

“You just said it. Everything is ‘practically free’, not completely. Things still cost something, and no matter how little that quantity may be, if people can’t find work at all, then it is impossible for them to obtain any funds through legal means and afford even those most trivial of necessities. At the end of the day, we are left with a bunch of goods that everyone wants but hardly anyone can have, at least not until the final push. But alas, those finishing touches are just shy of complete, and until then, the people have to comply with sleeping out in piles of extraneous hardware and blankets made from overrun film tape- all in the name of progress.“

The world began to circle around me, and a sinister feeling crawled up my legs like a hundred little tarantulas, death and demise conspiring together to end me in the most despicable of ways possible.

“That’s it,” I muttered under my breath. “It’s time to go home.” 

In all of the fantasy morphed to dread about the qualitative nature of this past, the clock had run out well past 7:00 p.m, and my home in the now was looking more fantastical than ever.

“Alexica, send me home,” I tugged on the electrical cord wired to my neck, and the string responded with its telltale happy-go-lucky whoosh. But then...

“Error. Unable to process request. Please try again later.”

Ugh. Just the time. I’m not in the mood for shenanigans right now.

“Alexica, please send me home. I’ve had enough with 2091, and I want to be back in the present.”

“Error. Unable to process request. Please try again later.”

Growing frustrated, I repeatedly yelled out more commands as a few beads of sweat rolled down my sideburns.

“Alexica. I’m done playing games. Send me home. Now.” I jammed the wire with an extra bout of rigor, and a sad “beep boop” was generated in response.

My heart escalated in pace, now well past two hundred beats per minute, and I tried foddling the wires once more. It was useless. The machine had worn out, lost its batteries or something of the sort. My hands trembled, naked children in sub-zero temperatures shivering in distress, and my knees were starting to buckle nauseously. Panic seized control of my mind as realization followed suit.

I am here, stuck 500 years in the past, and there is nothing I can do to go back.

Oh no.